Tag Archives: Public health

I am compelled to write this simply out of human empathy towards the injustice done by fellow humans towards each other in our everyday lives without even pausing to spare a thought of consideration for the effects of our actions.

In the early hours of Monday morning, around 3am, a pregnant female tourist from Spain sought to find directions to a public toilet within Hammersmith bus station. Now this is a bus station that is in operation 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. I am presuming the staff within this bus station are not on a voluntary basis nor positioned there as prisoners of war. They are paid to offer customer service to users of the bus services which are running through their premises. You could be pardoned for thinking this is not the case.

Yet this pregnant female tourist upon alighting at Hammersmith bus station to connect sought to use the public toilet facilities before continuing on her journey, but instead was rudely escorted to board her connecting bus. To make matters worse, the station supervisor on duty who did this to her was a fellow female. Ironically it was a male bus driver who took pity on her situation after observing her distress while on board and stopped the bus for her to find a suitable place to relieve herself.

Now I know there often is office politics in most work settings, but seriously when persons lose the ability to carry out a service they are in a paid position to do, it really gets my goat! Irrespective of how tired the supervisor may/may not have been, when did her humanity depart from her soul?

I implore Transport for London executives to please look in to the customer care service of your staff on ground because it is really leaving much to be desired for the general public who pay to use your amenities/services and instead are left frustrated on many levels. The lack of access to public toilet facilities is a poor show to visitors who come to London but also it encourages anti-social acts when persons seek to relieve themselves on streets etc… which can result into public health issues.

What happened to this woman at Hammersmith bus station was completely unacceptable and should not be allowed to be the norm.